Twitter is a huge micro-blogging platform based on a very simple concept – sharing updates and thoughts throughout the day with a band of followers, hopefully all of which are interested in what you have to say. With 140 million users worldwide, this social network can be very useful to promote art to a focussed audience of followers who are interested in what you have to say.

Of course, no social network is useful unless used in the right way. I have covered several tips on how to use Twitter effectively. Find this article here: Twitter Tips for Artists

If you are interested in learning how to post photographs of your art to Twitter, you may find a detailed tutorial here: Art on Twitter

What follows are a few tips and tricks for using Twitter effectively.

Embeddable Tweets

Once upon a time the only way for webmasters to display a Tweet was to take a screenshot. Now, the entire Tweet can be embedded directly onto a website with a little snippet of code. The Tweet will include all links for following, retweeting, replying, and favoriting.

Here is how this can be done. Go to Twitter where the Tweet is posted. Click on the Expand link, then Details. The page for the Tweet should pop up. Click the link Embed this Tweet.

Make sure HTML is selected, choose the alignment, and copy the code into the source code of your website.

Find people on Twitter to Follow

Click the #Discover link right at the top of your Twitter profile. Then hit the Who to Follow tab at the left. A series of suggested Twitter users appear based on those you already follow.

You can also find other artists like you by clicking the Similar to You tab on your Twitter profile.

I like to follow other artists, so this makes it much easier to find them, rather than searching for interesting artists at random.

Add yourself to Wefollow

Wefollow is a huge directory of Twitter users organized by category and city. To include your own Twitter profile, go to Wefollow. Click the green Add Yourself to Wefollow button right at the top. Insert your city and 5 different interests. Enter a short word such as art or painting and pay attention to the number beside it, which indicates the number of Twitter users on Wefollow with that tag. Try to choose tags with a very large number if possible. Click the button at the bottom when finished.

Add the Twitter Follow button to your website or blog.

The Twitter Follow button will allow visitors to follow your Tweets directly from your website, and also display the number of followers you already have. Go here to get yours, including buttons for sharing, hashtags, and mentions: Twitter Buttons

Choose the Twitter Follow button, then select your language. The code for the button appears at the right. Copy this and paste it into the source code of your art blog or website where you would like it to appear.

Schedule your Tweets with Bufferapp

Bufferapp is a great application for scheduling Tweets and sending them out at regular intervals, instead of not all at once. Optimal times are already set, so I don’t recommend changing them. For myself Bufferapp has become not only a real time saver, but also an easy way of sharing content that I like around the web. Normally, I am only online at certain times.

Before using Buffer I was hesitant to share a lot of things at once, since I did not want to deluge my followers with recommended links. But now, with Buffer, I can spread out these shares throughout the day. This means more stuff shared, and more people seeing it. To learn much more about Buffer, please visit this post: How to Use Bufferapp

#FollowFriday and Follow Friday Helper

Follow Friday has become a very popular way of promoting friends on Twitter. It has become a tradition for many to send out a Tweet including the Twitter names of several recommended Tweeters on Fridays.

Not only is this a great way to show your appreciation to others, but the people you recommend will be notified of the share. These people will be more likely to return the favour and recommend you to their friends.

Other tags similar to #Followfriday which you may find useful are #Thankyou, #Gratitude, #ff, and #MustFollow.

Follow Friday Helper is a great tool that will help in easily finding others to recommend, and send out the Tweets through its interface. Also use this tool to recommend others any day of the week (#FollowSaturday, for example).

These are just a few tips and tricks for using Twitter and building followers. Do you have an interesting Twitter tip to share with us? Please let us know by leaving a comment!